Permanent Staff

Henk KnipscheerManaging Director: Henk Knipscheer
With long-term field assignments in both Asia and Africa, Henk Knipscheer has more than 30 years experience designing and managing agricultural projects. With expertise including agricultural sector assessments, rapid marketing surveys, and credit studies, he designed alliance-type of projects with a number of multinational agribusinesses including Cargill, Unilever/Lipton, Heineken and Diageo. In Nigeria he co-authored the Cassava Sector Master Plan (2007). Earlier in his career he was Senior Managing Director at Winrock International.

Pierre AntoineSenior Officer/Finances and Administration: Pierre Antoine
Nearly 40 years experience in the design and management of agriculture and natural resource programs in 20 countries of Africa and in Indonesia, Pierre Antoine has managed a portfolio of over $40 million. Prior to joining EUCORD as Director Finances and Administration, he was Director of the Africa division at Winrock International, Director General of the National Agricultural Institute of Zaire (with the Rockefeller Foundation) and staff of the University of Minnesota. His prime technical focus is income generation at the smallholder level, micro-credit associations, empowerment of women in rural areas, seeds, yield and productivity increase, private and public institutional linkages.

Niels HanssensDeputy Managing Director: Niels Hanssens
After obtaining his Master’s degree in Tropical Crop Science from Wageningen University, Niels Hanssens worked for close to 20 years in West Africa. Following assignments in Nigeria with VSO and IUCN and a brief engagement with the Netherlands’ based TOOL Foundation he went on to manage several agriculture projects for Winrock International while being based in Ivory Coast and Mali. During this period he also supervised EUCORD’s portfolio of projects from 2003 to 2005. Following, he moved to Nigeria where he was Director Technical Services at the MARKETS project, USAID/Nigeria’s flagship agribusiness project. In 2009, he returned to EUCORD to assume the position of Deputy Managing Director.

Marie ThirionOperations Manager: Marie Thirion
Has been a member of EUCORD’s staff for 5 years and works in close collaboration with project staff in the various regional offices. As Operations Manager, she is responsible for the daily management of program and financial activities, as well as handling the organization’s human resources, administration, and contracts. In addition to headquarters management, she has spent time in Burundi as Acting Chief of Party and in Madagascar as a Procurement Specialist for a World Bank funded project. She received her Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Kent in Brussels, following her B.A. in International Affairs from Northern Arizona University.

philippe GustinFinancial Officer: Philippe Gustin
Joining EUCORD in June 2010, Philippe Gustin manages quality financial reporting between projects, the external accounting partner and donors. Before joining EUCORD he worked for ING Bank as relationship manager institutions and later as financial manager and coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Kenya, Malta and Haiti. He obtained a Master’s degree in Science in Business Engineering and a post graduate degree in Statistics, Data management and Data mining at UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain).

Program Development Specialist: Jihane Hajji
Jihane Hajji joined EUCORD in October 2010 to provide support in new business development. Prior to that, she worked for the Ministry of Health in Morocco on EU and World Bank projects to reform the Ministry. Following she worked on behalf of several international development agencies including WHO as technical assistant in charge to support in developing Morocco’s proposal to Global Fund. She also worked as regional advisor for the USAID PROGRESS project focused on the decentralization of primary, reproductive, HIV and child health services and for the Belgian Technical Cooperation as program officer in charge of projects focused HIV/AIDS, rural development, promotion and integration of women in rural development and vocational training. She has an Economics degree from the University of Aix Marseille II and a Master’s degree in International Project Management.

Karamoko SakoRegional Coordinator (Mali): Karamoko Sako
In collaboration with non-governmental and public organizations, Karamoko Sako has 30 years of solid experience in agricultural extension, research & development, varietal introduction, micro-finance, capacity building of farmers and management of rural development projects throughout Mali. He received training as an agricultural engineer at the Institut Polytechnique Rural de Katibougou.